Photo courtesy Chicago Griffins RFC •
The Chicago Griffins didn’t start the Midwest 7s season as the favorite for the title. The first-year team finished fifth in the first series qualifier, as the Chicago North Shore core integrated with a group of college-age players. But it was the first step of many, and as the summer progressed, the results improved. On Saturday, the Chicago Griffins won the Midwest 7s championship with a 36-5 final victory over the Youngbloodz.
“The amount of improvement they’ve shown over the last month has been fantastic, and it’s a credit to how hard they’ve worked at practice,” Chicago Griffins coach Greg Doolan said. “The biggest sign of that has been the last three tournaments. In each of those finals, they have been dominant. … At the end of Saturday, there was no doubt that we were the best team by some distance. We’re certainly the fittest team in the Midwest, and we’ll see how we stack up in two weeks in altitude against more favored teams.”
The idea for a Griffins women’s side began brewing in the spring, when Doolan occasionally helped coach Chicago North Shore. He developed a nice report with the players, who then expressed interest in wearing the Griffins’ colors during the summer. Doolan not only introduced a more modern system of 7s, but the New Zealander also brought three decades of international coaching experience to the team. He further challenged players by fully integrating practices with the men, so the women could continually test their skills and push fitness.
“Our ladies’ team, they were able to quickly gain a level of sophistication on both sides of the ball and in a completely modern way,” Doolan said. “It’s one of things that American rugby needs next. There are more young people wanting to play the game, but there are very few qualified coaches who have been coaching at a higher level in more rugby-oriented countries and in a very current time. What you’ve got here in the states is guys putting their hands up to coach – which is magnificent – but they’re short on experience, even as players, and therefore their understanding of game development in a sophisticated, systematic way is lacking. Or you have that expat story where someone ends up in the U.S. for work, played a bit of rugby and wants to get involved. But the time they were involved in the game has become such a long time ago that the skill sets and structures and systems that are being taught today are foreign to them.”
In addition to upping its rugby knowledge and understanding, the team needed to become a cohesive unit, and that took time. Fortunately there was a good core that could drive performance in the meantime.
“You’re always looking for three kinds of players in 7s,” Doolan explained. “The grinder – hardworking up the middle, makes a lot of tackles and gets up to make more, gets to a lot of rucks, gets over the ball and recycles. And then you want one or two playmakers, and then a finisher. Lauren Trout is rather unique and can offer all three of those skills. She has a very athletic frame on her and good size as well. She could easily play any position on a 7s team.”
Doolan backed the flyhalf for national team consideration. The team is captained by Lizzy Bristow at scrumhalf and wing Brittany Biendenbender, and both have solid 7s backgrounds.
“Lizzy Bristow is starting to develop her game at another level,” the coach said. “Probably a story for most women’s teams and a lot of men’s teams across the country – they rarely get the opportunity to be exposed to coaching that takes their game beyond the basic rudiments. When the opportunity’s there, their desire is so great that the rounding of the edges and decision-making process improves rapidly.”
Doolan praised Biedenbender’s consistency and fitness, and also singled out 15s prop Kadie Sanford.
“She’s another one with a big engine – just keeps going – and very strong on defense and with ball in hand,” he said. “As the game of 7s keeps evolving and changing, her style of rugby can be very useful. She forces more than one player to make a tackle, which sets up quick rucks and opportunities for mismatches.”
Doolan indicated that there is a strong group of youngsters who are relatively new to the game and starting to show, but still focused on development.
All of the pieces came together in the Midwest championship Saturday, and Doolan didn’t withhold praise.
“They were absolutely outstanding. You couldn’t ask for a better outcome match by match,” the coach said. “There was one game where we played our younger players [and lost]. We had the final coming up and wanted to rest our starters – not to take away from Cincinnati; they played well. But when our starters started, they were very dominant. They were playing in the system and not stepping out of it.”
The Griffins will focus on fitness and execution this week before selections are made for nationals. As for goals in Commerce City, Colo.?
“We started the season on the basis that everyone develop and become better rugby players. We’ve maintained that throughout the season and we never look ahead very far at all,” Doolan said. “All we want to do is get our systems down and give ourselves chances to play great rugby that we can be proud of. If we do that, then the result will take care of itself. If we play as well as we can and we lose to a better team, then we won’t be disappointed.”
The Griffins will compete in Pool B alongside 2015 finalist Seattle, Mid-Atlantic runner-up NOVA and Atlantic North runner-up Boston. The Youngbloodz also advance as the Midwest #2 seed and will compete in Pool A with ARPTC, Old Blue and Phoenix. Click here for the complete field.
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